Those words are etched onto my mind. When I first started trying to learn about how to make money online. the very first thing I did was do a Google search about it. The first thing I encountered was surveys. The reason for this being is simple: surveys saturate the “Make money online” field. Then you start hearing things about transcribing, virtual assistants, this and that and the other thing and soon enoughyourheadisspinnningandyoufeellikeyou’reonaridegoingnowhere.

Catch my drift?

In what world does money come out of my computer screen? I accept the infinite number of universes theory, and I would wage in not ONE of them does this happen.

Most people who have the idea to make an income online give up after awhile, lamenting that it’s “not possible” or it’s all a “scam”. And let's be honest, if you begin trying to learn how to make money online by typing those words into Google, you will find a lot of scams out there. However, it IS possible to make money online.

Let me repeat that: IT IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE. Many people have done it. I have done it. So can you.

But let’s get a few things straight first. Making money online isn’t as simple as clicking a button and seeing your bank account swell by the thousands. That’s the very first problem people have; they assume they’re going to reach their dreams by doing no work. "The power of the Internet. A simple solution." But those things don't exist.

Let’s talk economics for a minute. There are two Economics principles that apply very well here. For the sake of clarity, a principle is “an unchangeable truth”. And when talking about economics, we are talking about, in the most simplistic form, making money.

Jim Cannon would be proud.

Economic Principle (Or Money-Making Unchangeable Truth) Number 1: There are no free lunches.

Sound familiar? It's probably something you learned in High School or College Economics. It's the first thing taught on day one.

This is an idea that you should have learned just by living. When is the last time someone came up to you and handed you a million dollars? Heck, when is the last time someone came up and randomly handed you one dollar? That’s because the most basic fact of life is that nothing comes free. Another way to put this is “He who shall not work, shall not eat.”

So when you Google “How to make money online” and someone promises you riches with zero or little work, THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. Why? Because there are no free lunches!

Even things that seem good always have strings attached. For example, if I handed you a piece of cake for free, what would you assume? Right off the bat, you might think I had done something to the cake. I offered you free deliciousness but at the expense of a cruel joke. Or maybe I didn't do anything to the cake. It costs you a few hundred calories to eat this piece of "free" cake.

Every single one of us using this website right now has Internet access, be it through a computer or mobile device. To get that Internet, we pay a company (Verizon, At&T, Charter, whatever) to hook us up to the hub of Internet. Somehow, don't ask me to explain how that all works. It is something that we want, therefore many people realized that they could make big money providing that service for us.

For you to make money, you have to provide value. Absolutely have to. And this point links nicely with both of these economic principles: There is either little or no value in you clicking a mouse, or doing some simple survey, or even writing a blog post about your kitty cat. There simply is no demand for this service. So how are you going to make money off of it?

So the very first thing you have to realize about making money online is this: IT IS NO DIFFERENT FROM MAKING MONEY IN THE REAL WORLD. People want things, and you provide them. Similarly, just as you can either become employed for a company and earn money in the real world, you can also start your own business directly creating and providing the service or product. Here is where we get to the meat of things.

To make money online, you can either work for someone who’s already doing it, or you can find a need (niche) that some group of people (the more the better) want filled, and fill that need. The problem with option 1 is that with outsourcing, you pretty much have to sacrifice and make the wages that people make in third world countries. Why pay College Graduate John $25 an hour to do a task I can get a working Mom in Japan to do for a fifth of that?

So that leaves us with starting a business. And this is why most people fail to see any gains when they venture into making money. They forget that you are essentially starting a business when you decide you have something of value to offer and you want to make money from it. They think they can just dangle their line out there and everyone is going to bite.

Yes it is possible to make money online. But the very first thing you have to do is change your mindset. You will be starting a business, or maybe you were one of the fortunate and found an online job that actually pays. But either way, you will have to do real work to see real money.

Join me on my making money online journey. I can be contacted at my website, www.howmakemoneyblogging.com. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to me!

This guy really knows what he's talking about making money online. Listen to him.

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